It is especially in accelerator plants which operate with pulsed beams and a multiplicity of elements for beam guidance and experimenting stations must be controlled synchronously with the pulsed beam of the accelerator that it is required to synchronize radio-frequency signals which are used in the individual experimenting stations with an optical reference, namely a pulsed laser beam. This laser beam can be preferably an erbium laser which emits pulses at a repetition rate of 216.6 MHz, wherein this repetition rate can be adjusted extremely accurately.
It is then required for the individual elements of the accelerator plant that the radio-frequency signals used therein are synchronized precisely with the pulses of the laser which means that, for example, a zero transition of the radio-frequency signal coincides accurately with a laser pulse.
In addition, it is also of interest in other fields to synchronize optical and electrical signals with one another.